Standing at Standing Rock

Penn's home page features a video article, "The Stand at Standing Rock", in which Tim Powell, senior lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies, reflects on the significance of the stand at Standing Rock.

“What the people at Standing Rock have taught us,” Powell
says, “is that it’s a time for Native and non-Native people to come
together, but not to assimilate Native people, but to honor them for
their knowledge.”

Beginning in April 2016, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
and representatives from hundreds of tribal nations gathered to resist
the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which would pass less than
a mile from the Standing Rock Reservation. Many members of the tribe
consider the pipeline and its intended crossing of the Missouri River
and Lake Oahe to constitute a threat to the community’s clean water and
to ancient burial grounds. The grassroots movement known by the hashtag #NODAPL is considered the single largest gathering of Native Americans in more than 100 years.